Barcelona : preliminary resilience assessment

Podeu consultar la versió en català a: http://hdl.handle.net/11703/113943Podeu consultar la versió en castellà a: http://hdl.handle.net/11703/11394

Climate change and health: a tool to estimate health and adaptation costs

Details the correct use of a WHO designed economic analysis tool to support health adaptation planning in European member states.Summary:The WHO Regional Office for Europe prepared this economic analysis tool to support health adaptation planning in European Member States. It is based on a review of the science. It is expected to be applied in Member States mainly by line ministries responsible for climate change adaptation. It provides step-by-step guidance on estimating (a) the costs associated with damage to health due to climate change, (b) the costs for adaptation in various sectors to protect health from climate change and (c) the efficiency of adaptation measures, i.e. the cost of adaptation versus the expected returns, or averted health costs. The tool consists of a document describing the methods step-by-step and a manual with an Excel spreadsheet, which is a visual aid for calculating costs

Securing Our Economic Future

The American economy is in the midst of a wrenching crisis, one caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and aggravated further by a series of climate-driven natural disasters. While the economy has made some steps towards recovery, the pandemic has laid bare the reality that too many Americans are unable to meet many of their urgent and basic needs. At the same time, it has become painfully clear that American society is not equipped to deal with the risks emerging from our changing climate. This book is a contribution towards policy options for addressing these challenges. Although it was largely written before the pandemic crises beset our country, the analyses, diagnoses, and prescriptions contained within all shed new light on the underlying fragilities that have since been exposed. The volume is composed of nine commissioned chapters and is divided into three sections, covering the 'Economics of the American Middle Class'; the 'Geographic Disparities in Economic Opportunity'; and the 'Geopolitics of the Climate and Energy Challenge and the US Policy Response.' Part I focuses on the economic wellbeing of the American middle class and the chapters in this section evaluate the prevailing narrative of its decline. The chapters in part II investigate the large variation in income and economic opportunities across places, and include a specific policy proposal for emergency rental assistance. Part III is devoted to the global climate crisis. The chapters in this final section emphasize the mounting social and economic costs of inaction and discuss potential policy approaches for tackling the climate challenge

Managing vulnerability to drought and enhancing livelihood resilience in sub-Saharan Africa: Technological, institutional and policy options

AbstractAgriculture and the economies of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are highly sensitive to climatic variability. Drought, in particular, represents one of the most important natural factors contributing to malnutrition and famine in many parts of the region. The overall impact of drought on a given country/region and its ability to recover from the resulting social, economic and environmental impacts depends on several factors. The economic, social and environmental impacts of drought are huge in SSA and the national costs and losses incurred threaten to undermine the wider economic and development gains made in the last few decades in the region. There is an urgent need to reduce the vulnerability of countries to climate variability and to the threats posed by climate change. This paper attempts to highlight the challenges of drought in SSA and reviews the current drought risk management strategies, especially the promising technological and policy options for managing drought risks to protect livelihoods and reduce vulnerability. The review suggests the possibilities of several ex ante and ex post drought management strategies in SSA although their effectiveness depends on agro-climatic and socio-economic conditions. Existing technological, policy and institutional risk management measures need to be strengthened and integrated to manage drought ex ante and to minimize the ex post negative effects for vulnerable households and regions. A proactive approach that combines promising technological, institutional and policy solutions to manage the risks within vulnerable communities implemented by institutions operating at different levels (community, sub-national, and national) is considered to be the way forward for managing drought and climate variability

Scaling Up Climate Action to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UNDP released its first infographic report that presented the breadth and depth of our support on climate change over the past two decades. That report emphasized successes and noted the opportunities that climate action presents for countries as they transition their economies towards zero-carbon and climate-resilient sustainable development.This year, as countries begin to take concrete action to deliver on their national climate goals, we are pleased to release an updated report of UNDP's climate change work. New, in this report, is a special focus on the linkages between climate change and sustainable development. Specifically, the report highlights the importance of climate action in delivering on the SDGs and provides examples of UNDP's on-going work on the ground towards this end. The report also presents UNDP's commitment to scale up climate change action in order to deliver on the ambitious agenda that countries agreed to in 2015." – Magdy Martinez-Solima

Pro-poor urban adaptation to climate change in Bangladesh : a study of urban extreme poverty, vulnerability and asset adaption

This dissertation investigates pro-poor urban adaptation to climate change in Bangladesh. Dhaka city, a capital of Bangladesh, is widely recognised to be one of the most climate vulnerable mega cities in the world. Climate change impacts are likely to affect the poorest urban residents disproportionately as having the least capacity to adapt to a changing climate. However, the assertion that the poorest are the most vulnerable to climate change is commonly made as a generalisation, with limited examination of the dynamic and differentiated nature of poverty. This research therefore aims to examine pro-poor urban adaptation in the context of climate variability and change. In analysing climate change vulnerability and asset adaptation from urban extreme poverty, this research identifies a differentiated view of poverty and vulnerability and also provides an analysis of how extreme poor households get access to assets and build asset adaptation strategies. This research found that extreme poor households do their best to adapt to perceived climate changes, but in absence of savings, access to credit and insurance, they are forced to adopt adverse coping strategies. Social policy and social protection could therefore become more of a priority sector for adaptation than it has been so far. This can create opportunities for the poorest to accumulate assets which help them to build asset adaptation or resilience strategies. By reviewing key theories and practices, this research first addresses the question of whether there is any interrelation between poverty dynamics and vulnerability. The research then explores drivers of climate change vulnerability for the urban extreme poor. This research critically analyses autonomous adaptation and planned asset based adaptation in order to build a conceptual framework of pro-poor asset adaptation for the urban extreme poor households and groups. Following this framework, this research aims to identify the individual adaptation practices and role of institutions and policies in supporting or constraining these adaptation practices. This research also examines the role of social policy and social protection for pro-poor adaptation. The research then applies the concepts drawn from a critical literature review to analyse the context of Bangladesh. Thus, the research has conducted household life-history interviews to explore the vulnerabilities and asset adaptation strategies of the extreme poor households. To understand household asset endowments (and their returns) descriptive statistics are derived from secondary sources. In addition to household interviews, key informant surveys, focus group discussions, grey materials and analysis of secondary academic materials were analysed to acquire qualitative information on the role of formal and informal institutions and policies for adaptation practices. The household life-history findings support the idea that poverty traps are likely to be linked to vulnerability. The empirical evidence also shows that there is a clear relationship between vulnerability to the market (exclusion from market opportunities), low asset holdings (and their returns) and ill-health. The slums and squatter settlements in Dhaka city are marked by high levels of physical vulnerabilities in the context of climate change, mainly as a consequence of their high politico-legal and socioeconomic vulnerabilities. The individual adaptation practices are impact-minimising, short lived, ad hoc and even harmful measures because the urban poorest are excluded from formal policies and institutions and in the absence of formal rights and entitlements, the process of facilitating and maintaining patron–client relationships is a central coping strategy for the poorest. The social policy and social protection are found to be effective in facilitating asset adaptation for the urban extreme poor and contribute to greater resilience to climate change. Analysing the empirical evidence through the lens of the pro-poor asset adaptation framework, this research reveals that the asset transfer approach was an effective programmatic intervention for building household adaptation strategies. Social funds and supports to community driven development can enhance the capacity of community organisations to develop small infrastructures that actually stops or greatly reduces flooding. However, challenging the adverse structural context is not a matter of building at a household and collective level assets but also capacity to participate in and influence the institutions from which they have previously been excluded. Attention must be paid to building a strong collective organisation in order to break the existing social order and inequalities. The city and municipal government can create an enabling environment for this grassroots mobilisation by providing services and information, and ensuring their access to the decision making process. A combination of micro (household), meso (community) and macro (city and municipal) level asset-based actions can ensure the long term resilience of extreme poor households and groups

Climate Change Impact: The Experience of the Coastal Areas of Bangladesh Affected by Cyclones Sidr and Aila

Bangladesh is considered one of the countries most at risk to the effects of climate change and its coastal area is most vulnerable. This study tries to explore the experiences of cyclones Sidr and Aila affected people living in the coastal areas of Bangladesh. This study was conducted in the cyclone Sidr affected Amtali Upazila of Barguna District and in the cyclone Aila affected Koyra Upazila of Khulna District. Primary data collection was done using Focus Group Interview and then a thematic analysis approach was used for analysis. Three core themes emerged from the analysis and they are, firstly, impacts of climate change on the socioeconomic condition of the people, secondly, the impact on the health status of the population, and finally the impact on vulnerable people. Findings show that the effects of climate change have serious consequences on the livelihood patterns of the affected population and on their overall health status. As a result, the unfavorable health condition of these affected people makes them more vulnerable to various emerging diseases